Goodbye Natalia
by BabochkaX
Summary: Natasha romanoff has said a lot of goodbyes but this one is overdue


(A/N) this short piece is based on a very little known about part of Nat's history, this covers some sad subjects, some areas people may struggle with but I wanted to tell this story in my own way, in order to explain her history and motives so much more.

2014

It was always cold in Siberia at this time of year- as in really cold, not the cool weather they considered cold in New York. It was roughly minus 22 degrees Celsius, cold in old money. She had hired a snow suit to come out here, not having one of her own these days. It had been a long time since she had legally crossed the border into Russia, a long time since she had gone through an airport to get there.

Security had been fun, there had been several checks of her documents, several phone calls to the US and still the security department were not very happy to let her through. They didn't like her diagnosis, they didn't want to let someone psychotic into their country, which, she agreed, was fair. However she did get through, she got into her homeland. It was funny, she thought to herself, given that they had thought so much to keep her and now they didn't want her back, but then, they knew her allegiances had changed, knew she now fought on the side of justice, not on the side of a regime.

It hadn't been easy to travel this far into Siberia. The village had long since crumbled as the war had advanced and the prisoners of war had either died or been liberated by rebel forces. The village now, as Natasha approached it, had became a pile of broken crofts, piles of large stones and the occasional smashed shard of wooden animal pens.

In her head things hadn't changed, in her head there were still cheerful little houses with shiny black doors footed by a path walled in waste snow. These chimneys used to always puff smoke, melting the snow and ice for water or to cook stews and other fish soupy meals with rough, rustic bread baked in a stone oven. Life in this distant part of Siberia was simple, but cosy.

Life had changed since early 1942, the world had changed. Nothing was simple now- least of all her life.

She walked through the knee-deep snow, it was hard and frozen, but at her knees as she pushed forwards. The Main Street of the little village was not easy found. The piles of stone and other rubble seemed so random compared to the last time she had been there, the last time however, these piles had still been buildings, all be it roof-less buildings.

She pulled off a Caribou skin glove- the warmest kind even though they weren't the best for the flora and fauna- drew out her cell phone and had a look at the GPS. She had done a cross match between an old map which showed the town and the modern ruins. It wasn't difficult to drag her legs through the heavy snow and out into the next row of streets. She kept pushing through the snow, the exercise warming her body to the point she no longer felt a need for her snowsuit but she knew better than to take it off. The furthest back house in the village, now only marked by the love stone which would have once lain above the doorway, was her last point of contact. She had another few hundred yards to walk. The house had been where it all happened, but it was further to walk until the place it had ended.

1942

"Come on Natalia, only a few more, you are almost there." The woman encouraged her, holding Natasha's knees up towards her chest with one hand, her other hand down where no one but a husband should see. Natasha was covered in a sheen of sweat, a sheen so thick it was starting to drip from her forehead.

The room was dimly lit, lit only by a few large church candles and a fireplace. The shutters were all closed and bolted.

"Another Natalia," the woman smirked. Then it hit again, with the force of a train slamming into her body Natasha felt her muscles screaming once more, her muscles were hard, as though turning to stone, her legs shook in the woman's grasp and she tossed her head violently. She felt hot, her body burned- especially down there. There was a fire between her legs, a fire worse than that of any fire she had ever touched, could ever have imagined. Her body felt it was resisting itself, like two sides of herself were battling each other- she wanted to turn both to stone and jelly in one moment.

2014

The thought was quickly thrown from her head, she knew the next part. She also knew that there was a large amount of change between Natalia and Natasha, Natasha didn't cry- and not only because she didn't want her tears to freeze to her face and make her face feel hard and crunchy. She had moved on, grown up in the past seventy years, become cold, heartless; deadly.

The walk into the edge of the alpine forest became easier than the walk through the dead streets, the ground was higher here, and sheltered by the trees so that the snow was not near the depth it had been before.

She knew the trees still, knew the exact spot where she was headed. To anyone other than herself there was nothing to be seen in this forest, nothing but trees and the occasional rock. There was a stream which ran through it in the warmer months but now she believed it would be frozen right to the bottom.

It was a wide stream, even though it was not deep, and a few steps needed to be taken over its surface to reach the other side, this was no problem to Natasha- balance was always one of her fortes. The two steps she took were done en pointe, or at least the closest to which she could manage in soft soled boots. This acted as a nice challenge, a challenge she managed too easily p. She never forgot anything, her training, her memories, or the life they had so often tried to wipe away from her.

The tree marked the spot for her. The grave she had never been able to mark, never been able to celebrate the way people did now. People had been religious then, superstitious too, she couldn't have allowed this resting place to be where it was had anyone known. The tree had grown deformed, it was twisted and bend and ugly, it did not share her beauty but it was here to mark the one place Natasha hated and loved to be.

In that moment she became Natalia again, she became a twenty year old widow. A true widow ready to take up her mantel once all was lost forever.

1942

The burning, the burning, it was worse and worse but she squeezed as hard as she could, her muscles shuddering with effort, the lights blurring in her vision but she could do it, she had to do it. She had to keep going and now, even though he was gone she would have some reason to live, to keep going.

Then it was over, the fire began to slow, to fade. There was no sound. Her eyes searched the room, frantic to find Madame. She met the older woman's eyes, eyes which were cold and empty. She held it, wrapped in the towel. Help her Natasha screamed in her head why aren't you helping her. She knew in her heart however, knew the second Madame had met her grey orbs with Natasha's own.

Madame stepped forward, clutching the bundle against her chest, shaking her head with tears in her eyes.

Natasha felt cold, her body shivering and her heart shrivelling in her chest. It couldn't be, she couldn't loose another one.

Madame handed over the little towel-wrapped blanket. Natasha took it in her arms, it was heavy, and still warm. She peeled the blanket back to take a peak. There were still scissors attached to the little cord stump, pulling it down further she revealed it was- as she had always known while she carried it inside her- a little girl. Rose, her name would be Rose. Would have been Rose.

The little creature was perfect, her lips were wet, her eyelids slightly purple as if she already wore eye makeup in the womb. Her skin was mottled but she was still. She was limp, her arms flopped to the side as Natasha examined her face.

She looked like Nikolai.

She had dark hair like Nikolai, not her fiery red.

She was a chubby little thing, round cheeks and a pot belly. She looked so perfect, so right and Natasha had never felt so much love in her entire existence. She loved Rose, Rose who she had felt wriggle in her belly, Rose who had kept her company in the month since Nikolai. She ever so carefully pulled her little arms into her body, wrapping her tightly in the towel. She tucked her feet up, pulled the corner of the towel around the back of her neck.

Rose was cold now.

Natasha threw up on the wooden floor and began to scream, screaming a wail which was unlike any other, it was a sound of nothing but torture, nothing but the sound of her very soul leaving her body. She screamed and screamed until there was no voice left in her throat. She had lost herself, lost Natalia, forever.

2014

Natasha counted the roots of the tree. It was between the third and fourth root with your back to the stream where she had done it, where she had laid the head of her tiny little one. The baby girl hadn't been living for days when she was born, she was what they would now say was stillborn, or born sleeping.

She had always known of the brutality of the KGB, even as the Red Room cadet she had known things should be different but in many ways they had taken her very essence of womanhood. She had lost her only chance to be a mother.

As Natasha crouched between the roots, tears stinging her eyes and a lump protruding in her throat, she thought of what she had found. She had her family now, she had S.H.I.E.L.D., she had Clint and Steve and she would even wager Tony now and again.

She placed the red rose she used to bring every year onto the little crook in the roots, kissed its petals and, after many years of grief, of loneliness and of being lost inside her own mind she said her last goodbyes. It was time to leave Rose, she would have been in her seventies and possibly would have passed away even if she had survived infancy. She would never carry another child, a child could not survive her body- that was something she had learned over the years as science became greater. But science could never explain why Rose had left this earth.

She stood, wiping the snow of her knees. Swallowed. And said goodbye to Rose, and goodbye to Natalia.


End file.
